


The Color of Dreaming

by FlourishBelle



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Artist Eames, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-06
Updated: 2013-08-06
Packaged: 2017-12-22 14:32:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/914316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlourishBelle/pseuds/FlourishBelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Artist! Eames uses painting as a way to cope with everything he's lost and finds that not everything is as it seems.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Color of Dreaming

**Author's Note:**

> This idea popped into my head a while ago and I decided to flesh it out. I know where I want it to go, but for now I'm going to let it show me how it wants to get there.
> 
> Let me know what you think! :)

Sometimes the pain isn’t so bad. Sometimes, he can get out of bed and after coffee and a shower he even feels a little human. All he does now is create. To fill the void of that pure creation that he gave up, Eames creates. It’s all he has left in him. 

He was always social. Charming and likeable, Eames liked talking to people and he could whisk away hours engaging someone in meaningful, important and even life-changing conversation without revealing one detail about himself. He was social, but he was no idiot. He kept guarded, protective of the secrets that he was entrusted with as well as the secrets that protected his own life. He was, in the world of conmen and high-class espionage, the perfect thief. Eames proved as beautiful and charming as he was lethal, making him an asset to any team in Dream-Sharing. It was his sociability that allowed Eames to study the thousands of personalities that allowed him to be a forger. The mistake that mediocre forgers always made was in simply trying to mimic the individual’s habits like a two-bit charade. But it wasn’t that easy. Forging another person came through the recognition and acceptance of that person as a full human being. One can’t just put on their personality like a suit coat and parade around it, expecting to get by. The motives behind the actions were just as important, and it was in this that Eames excelled. 

He could transform into the persona he was supposed to without losing himself in the process which was another easy trap in forgery. Eames had always managed to keep a firm grasp on himself and his work while living in the loose and easy charm that he enjoyed. Until he met Arthur. 

This morning is crisp, a dewy summer morning rubbing the sleep out of its eyes before it boils above ninety. Eames lies in bed, somewhere between sleep and waking, the covers partially covering his half naked body, arms sprawled above his head. The faint aftertaste of a worrying dream lingers just outside his grasp, but it’s normal. He hasn’t dreamt normally in years, but if he did he knows exactly who their subject would be. It takes him another few moments before he convinces himself to get out of bed. Once he does, he grabs yesterday’s jeans from where they lay crumpled on the floor and crosses the bare hardwood to the bathroom. 

He lives in a spacious yet sparse loft in a small, artsy community. The building is all brick and history and the neighbors are all hippies, artists, and poets who drink coffee and talk about change. Even he thought it an odd place to retire to at first, but he rationalized, quite rightly, that it was the perfect place to slip into while he slipped out of the Dream Share scene. The loft is an easy, open affair with worn hardwood floors and brick walls. It’s bohemian, earthy without the greenery, charming and worn without the pressure of being chic. His bedroom is at one end, a box really, with no wall that separates it from the living room and a small bathroom and closet tucked into the back wall. The living room runs the length of the studio apartment with the kitchen at the other end. While the bedroom holds only a bed, the living room is nearly filled, but not with furniture.  
Around fifty six foot canvases line the brick walls, stacked against each other or standing alone, and a few rest sprawled on the floor. Each piece is an individual, swirled with bright, bold colors and spills such real emotion that it feels almost like a room full of talkative people. A huge canvas mural leans alone against the front wall, half-finished, obviously the piece that is currently in progress. Eames, rubbing his eyes and stretching, walks up to the painting and stops in front of it, considering it as a whole. 

In the center of the canvas is a human heart. Colored in bold reds and blues it shows the veins and arteries running through the organ which stands alone, outlined in white. It is the center of a torrent of color, this heart. The swirling, dipping colors that cascade and trip over, push past and burn though one another are all oriented, centered around this heart. His heart. Every feeling he’d never known he’d had established themselves here and created a perfect portrait of his passion and his grief. 

It’s been a little over a year since his retirement from the field. For a year he’s been in hiding, from the big business heads that would kill him, sure, but mainly from himself. In the year, three months and four days since his sudden disappearance he has only talked to a few people in this little town. He eats when he can be bothered to remember or when he gets annoyed enough by his growling stomach to interrupt his work. Even then he only runs to the little market two doors down and returns with enough in tow to prolong leaving his flat for another week. Eames is fully aware that people talk about him. That they wonder why he’s so much of a shut-in, who he is, and what he does. They know he paints, but only because the market owner asked about the splotches of color on his clothes once. He keeps to himself and, usually, that’s enough. 

Lately though, he’s been needing an ear. Not the mouth that usually comes attached, but just someone who can listen. He’s been in mourning for so long, reliving the memories in his mind so often that when he woke up with the burning need to talk about them, even he was shocked. He tried talking to his canvas as he worked and all that got him was to feel like a bloody idiot. Comprehension and sentience would make him feel like less of a nutcase. Even a little nodding might be nice. Silence though, silence would be key. Anything besides Arthur’s quick, sharp-witted comments would only remind him further of his crushing loss and drag him deeper into the depths of mourning. 

Eames turned quickly from these thoughts and reached for his paintbrush and spare canvas before he could change his mind. 

“WANTED:” he painted in big, black letters, “SOMEONE TO LISTEN.”


End file.
